Kids From Public Housing May Lose Their Club Sites

A decade ago, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago opened more than a dozen centers in public housing developments around the city to give the neediest children something to do after school.

But over the years grant money ran short and centers began to close, one by one, until just five remained. Now, unless a last-minute plea for money from the Chicago Housing Authority succeeds, four of those may close as early as next week, club officials have told workers and parents at the centers.

The move would all but end the concept of the clubs within the CHA and affect as many as 500 children who live in public housing and use the centers every year as a chance to get help with their homework, play baseball and take field trips to the city's museums.

"It's been a safe place for these kids to let them get away from the streets," said Jeannie Bratton, a resident of the Ida B. Wells development who sends her six grandchildren and nieces and nephews to the Boys & Girls Club "extension site" there. "If you close this place, I don't know where they'll end up."

The Ida B. Wells center is small, tucked in a worn, three-story CHA building surrounded by a yard of brown grass and views of run-down apartments. But to parents like Bratton, no one needs activities like painting and cooking and football more than kids who grow up on the streets around public housing.

"If this closes, this is saying that the lower community--the poor community--isn't due the same as the other communities. To me, children are children," she said. "It's not their fault where they live."

Officials from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago, one of the city's premier youth service organizations founded nearly a century ago, say they don't want to close the facilities. "But it's also a business decision," said Cheryl Pearson-McNeil, vice president of marketing for the clubs.

The organization operates the five part-time "extension sites" with money from the clubs' central office and $100,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant money, Pearson-McNeil said. But spending at the centers has exceeded that; this year, the centers together need another $137,000 to pay bills, she said.

"We had to come up with that from somewhere," she said of the clubs' central office, which draws donations from corporations and grants. "We can't keep operating these extension sites when they're losing so much."

The Boys & Girls Clubs also operates 15 full-time clubs in other neighborhoods around Chicago that are financed differently than the public housing centers. Each full-time club spends about $375,000 a year. Of that amount, each raises about $150,000 in donations on its own, and the rest is paid by the Boys & Girls Clubs' central office, Pearson-McNeil said.

Supporters of the CHA centers wonder why their facilities can't get the same level of subsidy. "The clubs are bigger, first of all," explained Pearson-McNeil, who said the 15 larger clubs help a total of about 40,000 children a year, mostly in low-income neighborhoods, compared with 500 in the CHA. "They're serving more kids, and they've got bigger locations."

Last week, club officials approached CHA administrators to request $200,000 to keep the four facilities open. Under the proposal, they want to expand the public housing centers--opening them full-time, with more staff. Officials say they need an answer by Aug. 20.

CHA Chief Executive Officer Phillip Jackson said Tuesday that he had not yet seen the proposal. "We're willing to take a look at it," said Jackson, who added: "The Chicago Housing Authority doesn't need fewer programs like that. It needs more programs like that."

At the Ida B. Wells center, 3824 S. Langley Ave., a sign was posted on the front door. The words were written in crayon: "Save Our Club."

Also in jeopardy are centers at Wentworth Gardens, Dearborn Homes and Lawndale Gardens.

"If this place hadn't been here, I'd be out on the streets somewhere, probably in a gang," said Walter Anderson, 15, who has been a member of the Ida B. Wells club since he was 9.

Through the club, he helped pick up litter around the city and delivered dinners to the elderly.

"This is someplace that can keep me out of all the gang stuff," said Anderson, whose face lit up when he explained that he had been given the club title of "junior leader" because of all his activities.

The center offers gang-resistance classes, homework help, recreational and sports programs to carry out its stated mission: "To partner with families and communities to enable young people in Greater Chicago to grow up to be responsible, self-reliant, caring adults."

Another Ida B. Wells mother, Annie R. Smith, admitted she may be "overprotective" of her two daughters, Jessica Bernice Stubenfield, 8, and DeAnne Nichol Stubenfield, 5. "This is the only place I let my children go," Smith said. "This is their safe haven."